Prom Dates

I can't say that I was exactly harboring the biggest of expectations to the 2024 comedy "Prom Dates" from writer D. J. Mausner and director Kim O. Nguyen when I stumbled upom it by random chance. And with it being a movie that I had never heard about, much less ever watched, then of course I opted to sit down and give the movie a fair chance.

The storyline in the movie was adequate. It was, however, a somewhat generic storyline. It wasn't as if writer D. J. Mausner was reinventing the young adult comedy genre here with this movie. That being said, don't get me wrong, becuase "Prom Dates" certainly was a watchable and entertaining enough movie, if you happen to like this particular genre of movies.

"Prom Dates", however, was somewhat devoid of comedy, and I wasn't brought to laughs a single time throughout the course of the 86 minutes that the movie ran for. So, as for this movie being a comedy, well, no, not so much really. This was more of a movie about coming of age and a movie about friendships.

I wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, except for actor John Michael Higgins. The actors and actresses did good jobs in bringing their characters and the storyline to life on the screen.

This is not a movie that will find its way back to my screen a second time, as the movie was a bit too generic for my liking, and the lack of comedy just was somewhat disappointing.

My rating of director Kim O. Nguyen's 2024 movie "Prom Dates" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Best friends, Hannah (Julia Lester) and Jess (Antonia Gentry), made a pact at 13 to have a great prom with their dates. They are now high school seniors. Jess finds her boyfriend cheating. Hannah's boyfriend is too clingy and she comes out of the closet. The two best friends suddenly find themselves dateless just 24 hours before prom.

The girls are well into their twenties. That's my first impression and the lasting one. I can't ignore it every time they're on the screen. Most of these 'kids' are well into their twenties. Otherwise, this is a fine raunchy teen comedy. It has a lot of the familiar humor. A lot of it works well except these actors are too old. Maybe there are child labor laws involved. Still, they need actors who look like teenagers.

I always watch movies till the end even if its bad but this movie was the worst thing ever it's like they torturing you watching this movie it was horrible i just want to say even if you want to waste your time don't watch this waste your time doing something else the whole story acting actors were bad they could choose better acters atleast it was so bad just waste of money to make this horrible movie.

It doesn't even worth to be rated 2 starts in the past they made the best comedy prom movies ever the new generation is just ruined we are down coming instead of improving what the hell is wrong with this generation.

I'm probably not the intended audience for a teen comedy, being a full-grown adult, but I watch them sometimes, because the teen comedies we had when I was a kid were not exactly inclusive. I found this movie funny, I think the lead characters were wonderful, the leads were convincing as best friends, beautifully supportive, and just silly enough to keep the film overall on the funny side, despite some heavier topics.

When I was the right age for this film, the only film with even some teenaged lgbtq+ characters was the film Heavenly Creatures. It was not a comedy, and it didn't have a happy ending. I wish this film, and some other lgbtq+ focused teen films had existed back then. You don't have to be queer to see the humour of this film, because most characters are straight, but it does add an element of "yeah, relatable" to this story. Also, yes, there's alcohol, drugs and all kinds of inappropriate things going on, but who cares, this is fiction, a comedy, and for once, it's from the girls' point of view.

This is another recent raunchy teen comedy that deals with issues faced by the Lgbtq community from a sensitive progressive perspective without losing the edginess expected from the subgenre. And yet again it really nails it.

I'll get what little negative there is to say out of the way quickly. At one point in this it felt like they were running out of material though later stuff reveals they hadn't. Another time it feels like the season finale of a soap opera. And there are a few jokes that punch down.

I understand that some people really hate that this does not completely feel like it takes place in reality. The excellent Youtuber Stutterbox recently did a video on the movie Bottoms where he points out that it's not exactly how it happened that we're seeing, rather it's how it was retold to others.

This is hilarious from start to finish. I'm not sure if it had a bigger budget than Plan B and I can't check right now because my wrists are in too much pain or if it's just that this was able to spend it in a way that is more showy but definitely it has strong production value.

Some characters are broader than others but the acting is all solid. Nobody feels like they're in a different movie. It manages to cover a lot of issues faced by the target demographic especially considering that it's laser focused specifically on prom.

It doesn't shy away from potentially controversial subjects though I can imagine that at least some of them are handled with a tiny bit less care than would be ideal. Most of them I can't speak to but I would definitely say that I did not love the bits about learning disability. 8/10.